The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-06-28
INDIANA PROFESSORS AND COLLEGES.

INDIANA PROFESSORS AND COLLEGES.
The faculty of Purdue University seems to
be rapidly disintegrating. President Smart
has been in Europe couple of months on
leave of absence to build up his health and
study foreign university systems Since the
commencement Prof. Warder, teacher of
chemistry, has accepted position in Howard
University, Washington, D. G. Overtures
have been made to Prof Charles r. Barnes,
teacher of botany, from the University of
Wisconsin, which he will doubtless accept, as
there is material increase of salary. Prof.
Barnes has been a very successful and popu-
lar teacher for five years at Purdue. He is
associate editor of the Botanical Gazette and
a well-known botanist. Prof. Melville B.
Anderson has been offered lucrative posi-
tion at the University of Iowa, under Presi-
dement, Schaffer, formerly of Cornell Uni
versity, which it is stated he will accept. Prof.
Anderson has been highly esteemed at Pur-
due, and his leaving is a loss to the State at
large, as he is writer and critic of no ordi-
nary force and ability. He has been but a
year at Purdue, having come there
L. Osborn, the teacher of biology at
Purdue has been offered chair at Worcester,
Mass, but it is not decided that he will ac-
cept. He is editor of the American Journal
of Microscopy, graduate of Johns Hopkins
University, and has, without exception, the
leading geological laboratory in the West;
his speciality as teacher is embryology and
animal histology.
President Smart will find on his return
some of his best associates scattered. There
is no lack of harmony in the faculty, but
men 60 where they can get larger salaries and
leisure for original investigation. The
board of trustees should remember that it is
the faculty. and not piles of brick and extern
sive catalogues that builds up university
If man is worth So, 900 to Iowa or Wiscon-
sin, he is worth as much to Indiana, and,
while it is credit to be able to furnish West
ern schools with teachers, it should not be at
the expense of our own colleges. The rank of
the State University, of Purdue and the
Normal School will rise or fall with the fac
ulty, and the boards should see to it thatmen
who are doing the State credit as teachers and
investigators not allowed to leave for a
paltry difference of $500 or 81. 900 in salary
The same is true Of the church schools
Wabash, De Paw, Butler and the rest. The
men for these institutions to keep are the very
Il. -
to retain the men who have made schools
double in Numbers and quality is more impor-
tant than to put up new buildings or enlarge
in any way material surroundings at the ex-
is mental output, rather than material
one. It differs in many ways from pork
house or street-car corporation. A few old
buildings and laboratories. a library that con-
tains the best that has been thought and said
in the world are the secondary considerations;
the men who teach and direct study are the
life and soul of educational institutions. The
college that sets men to hear recitations only,
and thinks one teacher is as good as another,
letting its great teachers slip, will 60 to the
wall.
Socrates and Plato constituted the whole
college in their day, and taught in groves,
porticos and market-places. Garfield said that
a college was established where there was an
oak plank with him at end and Mark
Hopkins at the other. Finley made Oberlin,
DR.. Arnold made Rugby, Agassiz and Gray
stood for biological science at Harvard. Rose
Polytechnic waited two years for president
after DR.. Thompson died; Wabash College has
always stuck to its eminent teachers, and only
so can a college become power in State
and stand above a high-school. It is to be
hoped that Purdue will retain the high rank
she has achieved, and that as far as may be,
by solidifying and retaining the men of emf
nence in her faculty.